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Travel site Mafengwo raises $133m from Temasek

Mafengwo, a leading Chinese independent online travel platform, announced today that it has closed its Series D fundraising round of $133 million.

New investors in this
fundraising round include General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity
firm; Ocean Link, a private equity firm focused on the fast-growing travel and
tourism sector in China; Temasek, an investment company headquartered in
Singapore; Yuantai Investment, and Hopu. Existing investors including Capital
Today, Qiming Venture Partners, and Hillhouse Capital also participated in this
latest financing round.

Mafengwo plans to use the
newly acquired funds to continue to expand its platform as it aims to reshape
the independent travel industry in China. Along these lines, to improve the
global travel experience, the company will offer Chinese travelers increased
user-generated content, a deepened application of advanced analytics to improve
user experience on its platform, and improved travel guides and services.

A popular travel application
among Chinese millennials, Mafengwo was founded by Gang Chen and Gang Lv in
2010. Initially an online travel community, Mafengwo has grown to become an
independent online travel platform that aggregates user-generated reviews of
destinations, hotels, attractions, and local activities to provide trip
planning advice to self-guided travelers in China. With its unique business
model, focused on providing users with both content and the ability to make
travel plans through its platform, Mafengwo has become a trusted resource for
Chinese travelers. Thanks to its dedicated user base of millennial users, the
company has doubled its growth in travel bookings for services including
hotels, transportation, and local activities over the past two years.

Gang Chen, Co-Founder and
CEO of Mafengwo, said, “This latest round of capital will allow Mafengwo to
further invest in our travel advice, content, and our technology-enabled
backend. Furthermore, we plan to upgrade the resources we offer on hotels and
destination markets as we continue to leverage the advantages from our diverse
community of users whose contributed content drives the success of our
platform. I believe that we can lead the evolution of the Chinese online travel
industry.”

Gang Lv, Co-Founder and COO
of Mafengwo, said, “Mafengwo began as one of China’s largest tourism communities
and has since evolved to become an independent online travel service platform
that covers over 60,000 travel destinations globally and leverages advanced
analytics to provide a unique user experience. Our platform continues to be
differentiated due to our community of users, who generate diverse and candid
feedback, recommendations, and ideas, and our AI-enabled platform, which makes
it easy for our users to find the content and recommendations they need to make
travel plans. At Mafengwo, we have a genuine love for travel and thank all of
our users for contributing to the success of our platform.”

Mr. Chen added: “It is
Mafengwo’s mission to help all travelers plan the travel experiences of their
dreams. We believe Mafengwo can become China’s largest travel services platform
and the interest from leading global investors in our company underscores our
success so far. As long as there are destinations for travelers to visit, there
will be services for Mafengwo to provide to improve their experience.”